Shattered Memories
by GenericOregairuFan
Summary: Ten years have passed since the death of Hayama Hayato. Komachi often asked her brother what truly happened, to no avail. Now, Hachiman is dead, and she can't help but feel the same as he did back then- that things are not as they seem. (Sequel to Broken Glass)
1. Chapter 1

**AN: I tried many times to write an epilogue to Broken Glass unsuccesfully. Initially, I'd planned for it to be based around Hachiman recalling the case later on in his life, but everything I wrote ended up feeling shallow or inadequate. After giving up for what (shamefully) ended up being months, I realised that Broken Glass didn't need an epilogue in the traditional sense. Really, it needed a sequel. This story won't be as long as Broken Glass, but it will serve as a far better conclusion to the narrative of the story than my attempts at a single chapter epilogue. The tone and style will be pretty much the same as its predecessor.**

**Again, I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who read Broken Glass the first time round, during its publication and updating stages and anyone whose read it in the months following that. It was probably one of the best writing experiences of my life- I know the conclusion won't have satisfied everyone but it was always my intention to have the culprit (won't spoil it if people still wanna read) who they were. One of the things that drew me to the idea first was to try and challenge perceptions of the Oregairu cast and see how they'd react/treat others in much darker situations. This sequel will continue that theme and then some. I suppose I also see it as another, more mature attempt on my part to tackle the 'post Soubu High' plotline that I tried in Anniversary. **

_**Ten years have passed since the death of Hayama Hayato. Hikigaya Komachi often asked her brother about what truly happened, to no avail. Now, Hachiman is dead, and she can't help but feel the same as he did back then- that things are not as they seem. (Sequel to Broken Glass)**_

* * *

**Shattered Memories**

**Chapter One:**

"Excuse me, but... I've seen you before, haven't I?"

Hikigaya Komachi looks up from her meal, almost gratefully. After spending half an hour in the closest branch of Saize to her house, one of many in Chiba alone, she can barely comprehend the swelling urge that had pushed her through its doors. Komachi has always strangely enjoyed being a face in the crowd- another inconsequential expression in the latest barrage of people on their way to a meeting, a date, a love, amongst the granite hallways of Chiba. In a crowd, you can be merely anyone else, and allow yourself to be consumed by a secure feeling of normality. Normality is precisely what she needs right now.

She has not visited Saize in what seems like too long. This, too, is incomprehensible to her. She has no reason to miss this place. She never hated it, merely because, to her, summoning any emotion in response to something as arbitrary as a Saize restaurant was pointless. She is coming close now, however. Everything about this place, with her sitting in an isolated table towards the back, seemingly forgotten by her frantic waitress, is wrong. The lighting is unpleasant. The people are either too loud or unpleasantly silent. The food she's paid for has the undeniable texture of cement.

The Hikigaya Komachi of three months ago would, undeniably, have passed this Saize restaurant without a second thought. She could be home by now, sipping her favourite drink with her boyfriend.

The food does not merit anyone's attention, let alone her's, so she looks up assuming that the silvery, feminine voice belongs to someone who has made a mistake.

"Sorry, I think-"

She stops mid-sentence. The face that stares back at her, fronted by a pair of vivid blue eyes, is eerily symmetrical, and eerily unwelcome.

"Gosh! It really is you! It's Hikigaya... _Komachi, _right?" The name curls on her tongue like singe-kissed paper.

"... Right."

Yukinoshita Haruno, as is probably to be expected, has aged impeccably well. Komachi saw the features only sparingly in her school days, but the fluttering black hair still wears its pristinity with an effervescent pride, and the startling translucency of her skin is unlikely to be chased from memory without a fight. Ten years, unlike the many dozens of jaded faces that she's abandoned after a single meeting, cannot even begin to dim the memory of a Yukinoshita. Neither of them. She wonders whether the same could be said for a Hikigaya.

"You look like you've seen a ghost. Am I really that frightening?" she says, with a giggle.

Komachi shakes her head, summoning a customary cheerful smile from somewhere. "Not frightening. Just unexpected."

"Well, sorry if I took you by surprise, but I just _had_ to come in and say hi. There I was thinking this was going to be another boring day, when I see a Hikigaya sitting in the window." Her eyes glint with something indefinable. "Say what you like about your family, but you've never been boring."

Komachi feels a wave of discomfort, but hides it well. Yukinoshita Haruno once had a habit of expressing extremely odd sentiments as if they were very regular, and it seems that, in the ten years since they last saw each other, little has changed. _And, _she notes, _this table is by no means in the window._

"I could say the same about yours."

Haruno laughs. "Very true, Komachi-chan. Very true." She gestures at the empty seat in front of her. "May I sit down?"

_No. Kindly leave now. _

Instead, Komachi flashes her pearly white teeth. "Of course! I'm sure we have lots to catch up on."

Sat down, the qualities that elevate Yukinoshita Haruno above everyone else in the world are revealed almost impolitely. Komachi can only think of one phrase to describe her- _an adolescent boy's wet dream. _All full-blooded grins and laughter, teasingly sharp remarks, starkly visible chest and tightly accentuated curves, no matter where you looked. She was wearing smart work attire that was just normal enough to be civil and just fashionable enough to be close to breathtaking. All she needed now was a large shopping tag reading 'priceless' hanging around her neck.

"So, what are you doing back in Chiba?" Komachi asks cheerfully.

"_Back _in Chiba? What makes you think I left?"

"Yukinoshita-san! You're cute, pretty, intelligent and talented. Chiba's too small for a person like that."

"By that rule, you should've followed me to Tokyo."

"Oh stop it-"

"False modesty is unattractive in a woman, Komachi-chan. Anyone will tell you that."

_You mean that one person in particular would tell me that. _

"I'm only recently a woman," she jokes with little conviction. "The rules don't apply just yet."

"Yes... I suppose you only graduated from university a couple of years ago? You were still in middle school when we last met, so you must be, what, twenty five?"

"Twenty four." She half considers telling her it isn't attractive of a woman to guess at ages either.

"Don't worry- the years haven't ruined your looks one bit."

"Thank you. And likewise."

"Though... you do seem very different."

She raps her forehead with her knuckle cutely. "I'm sure that's not true."

"Oh no. Very very different. Maybe others have rubbed off on you."

"Nah... I suppose I just grew up a little."

Haruno looked her up and down, smiling. "In some ways, perhaps."

The jibe at her height hit a sour note; Komachi finds herself nodding at Haruno's chest. "And you grew up even more, I see."

The older woman laughs loudly. "There's the difference! A bit more... would you say cynical?"

_Anyone will tell you that. Maybe others have rubbed off on you. Cynical. _Haruno likes to leave her clues. There's no game in winning before you begin. She is here for a reason, and Komachi can already tell what it is.

She wants to leave.

Komachi takes out her iPhone and checks the time. "Ah... I'm really sorry to say it Yukinoshita-san, but I won't be able to stay very long. Do you mind if I head off in five or ten minutes?"

Haruno shakes her head, as if the mere thought of Komachi leaving brought her physical pain. "Didn't you mention that we had a lot to catch up on? Whatever you're late for can wait, surely."

She sighs dramatically. "I wish that were true, but that's my boyfriend for you. He gets so worried if I don't get back when I say I will."

"I'm sorry to say it, Komachi-chan, but you don't strike me as the compromising type."

"Believe me- in our relationship, its usually the other way round. But he's better than most men, so I try where I can."

"I'm sure he likes that."

_Haruno's grin really is devilish, _she thought, as the older woman continued. "Do you mind me asking his name?"

"Shuya. Chikashi Shuya."

"How long?"

"Two years. We met just after I graduated."

"Oh? He's older than you?"

"Yes. Twenty nine."

"Does he earn a lot?"

"Not as much as you do, I'm sure." She tilts her head. "You _do_ work?"

"Yes. I'm an editor for a magazine."

"Which one-"

"Well, I hope that Chikashi Shuya is as happy as he should be."

Komachi would've smirked if it wasn't so grating. If Haruno decided that she wasn't getting her way, there was little anyone could do about it.

"Any reason that he wouldn't be?"

"None at all." Haruno leant back. "I haven't been quite so... I suppose you'd say successful."

"But you're so beautiful!" Komachi gushes dramatically. "It can't be your fault."

"Oh believe me, it usually was."

"Where any of them-"

"Cruel? Good-looking? They were all the same person, Komachi-chan. A carefully picked man with an expensive suit and yen in his wallet." The tips of her fingers drum on the table. "In my experience, _interesting _men aren't like that."

"How would you know if you if you've only been with the same pers-"

"An interesting man, Komachi-chan, is usually the opposite. An arrogant man is too predictable, and a kind man is unforgivably dull. You want someone in the middle. Arrogant enough to be unkind, but modest enough to know when they _should _be kind. Oh, and a little cynical too, like you." A pause. "Is Chukashi Shuya like that, Komachi-chan?"

They stare at each other. As Haruno had been speaking, Komachi's expression stayed warm, but without restraint it would've turned as cold the untouched food on her plate.

"I think that I should be going," she says carefully. "I don't want Shuya to-"

"Are you working at the moment too?"

"... Yeah. Nothing impressive I'm afraid, he he-"

"I'd still like to know. Just before you go."

"... I'm doing shifts in retail."

She laughs, this time even louder. "Only temporary, I expect?"

"Yes. It's more so I have something to do until I can get back to my real job."

"A schoolteacher, wasn't? And they gave you compassionate leave?"

"... Yes... Training to be..."

"What is it?"

"... How did you... Like I said, Yukinoshita-san, it's time that I moved on-"

She starts standing up. Her eyes were fixated on the now enormously welcoming doors to Saize, but now they look down at Haruno's slender fingers, digging into her hand. The sudden contact, holding her in place, catches the attention of several tables nearby them.

Their eyes meet. Haruno's eyes are full of an intensity and the indenfinable something that, earlier, had deeply unsettled her.

"I'm here for a reason, Komachi. If you leave now, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

"..."

Komachi prizes the hand of her wrist, and then her voice drops to a whisper that, had it not been for the fact she was in public, might've been a scream.

"Is it... is it about..."

Haruno nods. Her face is not sombre. Serious perhaps, but still glinting with a kind of sickening curiosity.

Hikigaya Komachi sits down.

"I will give you one chance to tell me what your... what your reason is. And," she adds, cutting off the interruption, "if you delay it or, or... or try to make a _game _out of this, I am going to leave."

Quiet falls between them. Haruno does not look satisfied; a child who has been told that their prank hurt its target's feelings. But she does not protest.

"... Did your brother ever tell you what happened ten years ago?"

Komachi's fingers drill into her kneecap.

"... I... I asked him, but he... I think he wanted to forget."

"That doesn't surprise me. He changed a lot of things, your brother. Ruined them, really. You see, I suspected Komachi. I'm sure _all _of us suspected we knew something or other about what happened that night. But I never suspected him. I... I underestimated him. I never thought that he would go that far. And what could we do about it when he got the truth that he wanted? What did _he _get from it? _Nothing._"

She licks her lips. "Do you remember the day that I came over to your house? You were listening at the door when I confronted him, weren't you?"

"... Yes."

"I don't remember everything that we said... I remember the anger. I don't think I'd ever been so angry at anyone in my life. I could see what was going to happen; he was going to ruin things forever, and I knew even before I came that he was too stubborn to be stopped. Too obsessed with his riddles. But I remember one thing that he said to me in particular. Do you know what that was, Komachi-chan?"

"Of course I don't."

"He told me that if a riddle was good enough, the answer was _always _worth finding." She hesitates, and Komachi thinks that the Yukinoshita sister almost giggled. "He really was an interesting man, Komac-"

"Stop it. Sto- stop _teasing _me. I'm not your sister, Yukinoshita-san."

"No. Your _Hachiman's _sister. That's why your the only one who might be able to make some sense of things."

"... What?"

She smiles. "There's another riddle, Komachi-chan. _His _riddle, this time."

"..."

Yukinoshita Haruno reaches into her handbag and removes a plain, pale white envelope. It's ruffled and has clearly been opened previously, only to be carefully sealed once more. Not carefully enough. She places it with the back facing upwards on the table.

"Take it. It's for you. Maybe you'll be able to tell what the fuck he was talking about."

Haruno barely had time to finish her sentence. Wiping a line of sweat that had begun to form over her brow, smudgeing her well-applied makeup, Komachi lifts herself up and walks away. Away from Yukinoshita Haruno and her disgusting, repugnant curiosity. Away from the disgusting, repugnant Saize food. _Why? Why the fuck did you choose to come back here?_

_You know why._

Only when she's pushed her way through the Saize doors, leaving Haruno to foot the bill, does she feel oxygen rush back into her lungs. Only then does she realise that the hand holding the letter is trembling like the arms of a tree in a storm. She takes the hand with her other, steadies it, pulling it back under control.

Silently, she turns the letter over until the front is facing up, and chokes when she sees the address.

**To be given to HIKIGAYA KOMACHI on the event of my death,**

**Signed, HIKIGAYA HACHIMAN**


	2. Chapter 2

**Shattered Memories**

**Chapter Two: **

Chikashi Shuya's apartment would not be his apartment for much longer. The centre of Chiba houses the majority of the city's looming apartment blocks but, as commercial shopping malls and high streets give ground to the droning whistle of suburbia, the occasional building will stand on metallic and glass tiptoes above the rest. One such block, on the west side of Chiba, is still close enough to the shrieks of the city's heart to be steeply expensive- residence for people who simply cannot afford to be twenty minutes from their place of work. The place of work in Shuya's case is ugly, like most of the architecture around it. Komachi has only been inside it once, but loathed the chairs, the forcibly attractive receptionist, the stinging chill of a business that treated people impersonally and did not expect anything less from their customers.

They are an industry that make their profits from investing in other industries that might be successful, but their true expertise lies in finding someone else to blame if they happen to be wrong. That was how Chikashi described them to her. He had found himself in an internship there after graduating from Kyoto University and, over the next seven years, had started to move up through the pillars of departments and offices in the building. Throughout the piled hours of overtime and evenings spent in the city-centre instead of with Komachi, the apartment had gradually become too small for his paychecks; he is planning to find a more appropriate place for them soon.

Her boyfriend, when he finally finds the time to be separated from investments, is a sharp looking man who has an uncanny ability of knowing precisely what he wants and committing himself to its realisation exactly. They met each other on a bus- or rather, saw each other on a bus. Komachi only noticed him sitting three seats away from her, but Chikashi had seen her reflection in the windows and, in its immaculate reconstruction of her face gazing listlessly at the Chiba streets, had presumed to know her immediately as a woman that he would want. He approached her once they got off, his eyes flying between her black hair and her curled eyelashes with an intensity of the most breathless, delirious kind.

He insisted that they go on a date, and she'd allowed him to. They both allowed themselves to fall in love with each other. She, the pretty training-to-be schoolteacher and him, the investor whom, whether in speech, business or intimacy, seems perpetually in motion. Perpetually ready for something that Komachi can't quite pick up on.

Everybody who she introduced her boyfriend to had been, at the very least, impressed. Except one person. He'd called him a 'corporate slave', if Komachi remembered right. And she did. Neither of them managed to find the heart to get along. Chikashi often made an effort to talk to him, to see what kind of person merited the other half of Hikigaya Komachi's heart, but was always disappointed. It usually wasn't her partner's fault. _He was never the kind of man to make compromis-_

_No. Remember the rule. _

The tip of Komachi's shoe taps relentlessly on the solid grey floor. The elevator to the floor of their apartment, Floor 14, has always seemed too cramped to her- a steel coffin being lugged ungracefully up and down the walls of an ungraceful building. It has tall mirrors to either side which leaves the face of the person occupying it to be repeated again and again and again in the world of the glass. Komachi glances to the side at the Komachi staring back, and wonders if the face, wrinkled by the thought of the Saize restaurant and the Yukinoshita sisters, is the same pretty face that Chikashi decided should be the one he loved in the bus windows.

It was her and her alone that came up with the rule, though. The rule about what she could think about. She remembers when she wrote it down, and repeated it until it reverberated in her skull, for the first time.

_Only think about the good._

If she was to think about her brother, then she could only think about what made her laugh. The parts of him that made her happy. She could not think about the bad parts of him. The times they disagreed, and she crie-

_The rule._

_My brother was the kind of man who liked to do things his own way._

This is better than 'he doesn't make compromises'. Phrased like that in Komachi's head and it's almost a good quality, not a bad. Now, she is only thinking about the good.

_Hikigaya Hachiman was the kind of man who liked to do things his own ways. He was his own, and he couldn't change for anyone._

_... Is that good or bad?_

Originally, Komachi had not written 'Only think about the good' for her rule. It had been 'Only think about the truth'; the truth of who her brother was, for most of the time she could never have distinguished between the good or bad. She only cared for him, for when they spoke, the good and bad seemed altogether identical, and it didn't matter. She wrote 'Only think about the truth' because, if she lost sight of who Hikigaya Hachiman was, the good and the bad together, it was undoubtedly an insult.

But it had hurt. Thinking of them both. Thinking of the truth. So, now she just thought about the good.

The elevator begins to slow, and after the moment, the doors slide aside and she steps into the corridor of Floor 14. As she does, the mirrors of the elevator flash from the cut of the light overhead, and Komachi is reminded of what remains trapped between her fingers. The letter. The letter for her.

Moving with the automatic disregard of a machine, she pushes herself over to the door that she and Chikashi come to open every day. The apartments in the building can only be opened by use of a keypad and code, which can be changed at the inhabitants leisure- for them, it is 42398. She punches the numbers in and the door clicks open.

Her back is soon pressed up against it, on the inside of the apartment. Komachi's eyes close of their own accord, ignoring the sight of the living room that was connected to the kitchen, with the only other rooms being the bedroom and the bathroom on the right hand side. The same layout as all the others in the block. What occupies it, makes it her and Chikashi Shuya's own, is memories; memories in the photos lining the surfaces, the times they ended up falling asleep together on the couch before rushing to work in the morning, the half-burnt memories of love indented in their bedroom. The fierce smell of them and their relationship in the corners of the apartment.

"... Shuya?" she calls out hesitantly, already knowing he is not back yet. Should he arrive back before her, he comes to greet her at the door, brings her to his lips, kisses her not quite with the consuming desire of their earliest weeks, but with the passionate comfort of the weeks that followed.

Her fingers run over the edges of the letter. It feels old and heavy.

_Hikigaya Hachiman. My brother, they... these are his words. _

She doesn't know if she wants to open them. She hasn't known what she wants for too long. The words of her brother are supposed to be gone. Cremated. The funeral was a long one, just like the one before. She has only been to two funerals in her life.

Hikigaya Komachi still doesn't know as the fingers find what they want themselves, and push at the already broken envelope, and lift the paper to the light.

* * *

_This letter is intended for Hikigaya Komachi and Hikigaya Komachi only. Nonetheless, I find myself in a situation so dire it must be entrusted to Yukinoshita Haruno. Inevitably, you will not be able to resist opening the letter, just the same as you could not resist barging back into my life, so this first paragraph is addressed to Yukinoshita Haruno. I hope that not understanding what I have written about frustrates you; perhaps it will be the motivation you need to be useful. For once in your life, Yukinoshita Haruno, I request that you help someone for a reason other than your own selfish desires. Help my sister out of "curiosity", if you must, but do not obstruct her or divert her. For everything I have done, my sister deserves clarity._

_That, my imouto, is also addressed to you. You are the one person in my life who I feel knows me exactly. Brutal honesty is more often than not what I strive to give, but if I was to lie, which has happened more times than I could count, then you know full well it is often for you. I have lied for others, yes, but if I were to sacrifice the truth entirely, then it would be for you. You know this, Komachi. I have even lied about lying for other people. Soon enough, in school, in afterschool clubs, in relationships, I find myself falling into the same old lies. And so, I write now in the hope that one day, you will be able to see that you meant far more to me than I could ever hope to express. _

_It is a bizarre thing, Komachi, to write about oneself in the past tense. It's not quite correct just yet, but it will be very soon. Here, I tell you what I know completely: I am going to die. I know that I am going to die, and I know exactly why, and how, and where. It has been planned, Komachi. I cannot say how long their plan has been in motion, but it is a good one. They have been planning it for a long time now, my imouto, and soon they will get what they want. But they won't get it precisely. With my last dying breath, I'll do everything I can to assure they don't get the satisfaction. _

_I am a spiteful person, Komachi. I am sorry that you were forced to know this. I have less regrets in my life than you would probably expect, but the majority of them come back to you. I was spiteful to you because you understood me; you were the one person who I knew would understand me no matter how despicably I acted, no matter the habits I fell into, no matter what I wrote. You were the one person who would somehow find a way to love me regardless. I am absolutely certain that, if I met me, I would find myself hateful too. And yet you always waited for me. I didn't wait for you, but you waited for me. You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi. You, above all, don't deserve the truth, Komachi. You deserve happiness. If there is any justice in the world, you will get both. _

_This whole mess began with death, Komachi. It's almost fitting that, like everything else, it should end with it too. It confused me at the time, but now I am beginning to realise why: on the day that we found out dad had been in the crash, I wasn't thinking at all about the fact we'd just lost our father. All I could think about was Kamakura. How they'd both died the same way- the fucking cat, and our own living, breathing father. Both of them gone without so much as a message of warning. I kept on thinking about how it only really got through to me when we buried the cat, and we watched as the dirt fell on his body. It was the same with father. It was only when his bones were in that casket and lost in the ground that I saw he wasn't going to be found again._

_I don't care what you do with me, Komachi. Not really. I suppose I should prefer that you burn me so it helps the environment or some shit like that, but I couldn't care less. Maybe there's something romantic in visiting a grave and dropping off flowers every week. I can see that. Being next to dad, maybe. That's the disadvantage of fire- in death, it's a little too permanent. But it's your choice; cremation, burying, leaving me on the side of the road. Like pretty much everything in my life, I entrust it to you. I trust you, Komachi. I know that, in your head, words and sentences that seem completely incomprehensible to anyone else will eventually make sense._

_I trust you, Komachi. _

_Signed with as much love as I can manage, _

_Hikigaya Hachiman_

* * *

While reading, Hikigaya Komachi finds herself wandering, as if she is a ghost, over to the couch where she and her boyfriend always sit. She finds herself almost falling into the cushions and staring at the typed words, staring and staring, reading where she can and accepting what she must.

Once she has finished reading, she closes the letter and places it gently on the couch beside her, like a mother with an infant. Her eyes, every part of her, have gone still, and she finds her attention has lurched away from paper and letters and onto the window that reveals to her the same tired secret every day. The building opposite, as unsettlingly dull as the apartment block she lives in, and Chiba beside it.

Her mind is blank.

Something in the city, the secret in the window, exhales. She follows it, uncertainly, and the stillness is gone.

_"I am going to die. I know exactly why, and how, and wher-"_

She blinks, and blinks again. _He... he kne-_

_"They have been planning it for a long time now, and soon they will get what they wan-"_

Komachi thinks she might have convulsed. She isn't sure. Her mind feels absent as something finds the muscle to lift her up and yank her over to the kitchen. The tap turns on and cold, hard water slams into her face, and she lowers her hands and tosses it onto her cheeks. Water droplets splatter over the ceramic surface as her hands rush to the edges to steady herself.

_"If I were to sacrifice the truth entirely, then it would be for yo-"_

Her body feels hot. Alive with a coursing, pumping blaze that brings red to her skin and blurriness to her eyes. The water is not cold enoug-

_"You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi." _

_... My brother is... my brother was a good person. He was a spitefu... he was a stubborn man who couldn't change for anyone. _

_That is the good. The good parts of him. _

_"You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi."_

She pulls out a fragment of her routine. They make drinks for each other. Her and Shuya. After work, if there are still hours of sunset clinging to the sky, then they get each others favourite drink and try to enjoy them together. She pours him the type of Sapporo bitter that he loves, and he makes her a mug of green tea. He usually makes another one for her, just before bed, every day. Komachi can definitely taste the rush of steam as he places it gently in her hands, the rush of his smile as he picks up his own glass, as she moves to the kettle. The water boils and she drops the teabag into the mug. _T- this will help. This always helps. _

The kettle, perhaps in response to the dismally hopeful thought, lets loose its high-pitched whistle. The noise suddenly sounds unconditionally like something else. The shriek of a landline phone. The landline phone on Chikashi's bed. The shriek that roused, woke, sat him up in his bed. The time of the call was 4:18 in the morning. There was the brief mention of his lips on her bare shoulder blades as he reached, snarling at the shattering of his dream, for the handset. He had thought it would be his work. It wasn't. His voice turned ripe with shock, and they both stood up in the unlit room.

Wiping sleep from her eyes, she could not keep the apprehension from her voice. "_Shuya... what is it?"_

_"... Babe, it's... it's your brother."_

_"... What about him? Was that him on the phone?"_

_"No."_

_"Shuya? Tell me what's wrong."_

_"... Babe... Komachi, this is gonna be... this is going to be hard to-"_

_"What's wrong?"_

_"... He's gone."_

_"Gone? Gone where?"_

_"... He's gone. They found him in his flat. Someone broke in through the window or something and trashed the place, and he's... he's gone."_

_"..."_

_"It was... that was the police. They said he was already gone before they arrived."_

Komachi pours the hissing water, and the steam gashes across her eyes.

_"You, above all, don't deserve the truth, Komachi. You deserve happiness."_

_Don't deserve it... why would I not deserve the truth-_

"Babe? You here?"

The jump at the click of the door, and the resonant voice that stands unified with it, causes her to spin around. She spins back at the crash. The mug of tea, the fragment of her routine, the promise of a regular evening of light and careless kissing on the couch, breaks, and scalding hot tea runs across the kitchen floor. Komachi steps back, her shoes now warm and damp, but she steps back into footsteps, into arms, strong arms beneath the sleeves of a black suit, the embrace of them.

"Babe, what happened?! Are you alright?"

"Shuya, I... the letter..." she chokes.

"The letter-"

"The letter... Onii-chan's letter..."

The spilled green tea that Chikashi Shuya makes for Komachi, every day, spreads to the heels of their feet. Stagnant.


	3. Chapter 3

**Shattered Memories **

**Chapter Three:**

Komachi's boyfriend reads the letter with an utterly inimitable expression. His face is one of the kind that displays its expressions like firecrackers- joy becomes a rippling explosion that seems to mock the very thought of being contained, sadness becomes volatile and somehow colourful, as if he felt not only sadness but every emotion with a profound understanding that far exceeded anyone else's. In the weeks that hosted their first dates, the moment when he'd asked her name once they got off the bus, and then spoke it in an intoxicated whisper, _Hikigaya Komachi, _and every week since, she had learnt this_. _Instantly, she knew everything that he lusted and longed for, there in his emotional betrayal of a face, the rough reverence in his voice. Because the expression was so real, so clearly present, it had meant absolutely nothing that they'd only seem a transparent glimpse of one another in the bus window. That she practically never saw the face in question _did _mean something, of course it did, but not enough for her to forget the peculiar loss of sense, of living at all, that he could imbue in her with one of those earnest faces. It was too flattering, lovely, irresistible.

That's why he finds it near impossible to lie to her. Not properly. His face betrays him, in its inconvenient honesty; it is not as if he would have any reason to lie. Like any person, he _could_ conceal something from her, but if she asked him, suspected something might be being concealed, Komachi slept well in the comfort that he would not be able to resist her either. Komachi trusts her boyfriend.

She trusts her boyfriend.

But, she also knows he has another face. The one he deftly slots into place when he receives a phone call from work or, she has no doubt, whenever he so much as steps foot in the protruding building of that work. The reticent face with the patronising formality. A face perfectly designed for disappointed clients. A face perfectly designed for telling people bad news.

And this is the face that Chikashi Shuya chose to read her brother's letter with.

"…"

Komachi can tell he has finished reading. The letter is long, and the words are cumbersome, but he must have finished.

"Shuya…" she murmurs, and then her voice strengthens.

He looks up from the paper. The lighting of the apartment lays his face down, starkly open to her, but she knew every minute detail of it anyway. He won't quite meet her eyes.

"You… you know what this means, right? What Onii-chan is telling me."

_Telling both of us now, _a voice whispers, but she ignores it.

Shuya bites his lip.

"… I don't want to say the wrong thing, babe. Sometimes, I feel like I always say the wrong thing around you-"

"You don't, Shuya. I love you."

"I love you too."

The moment ebbs away. It indicates a kiss, or a touch, but they do nothing. Komachi usually says those words in her "cute" voice. The fake one, better suited for strangers, that Chikashi Shuya has always given the impression of preferring.

"… I think you should forget about this."

"…"

He stumbles over his words. He never does that. He never stumbles or hesitates. He just keeps pushing forward.

"Komachi, we… when you lost him the first time, I'd never seen you so… so _gone. _It was like the Komachi who grinned when I brought her green tea in the evening was just missing. I dunno, like… like you'd died with him, or something. We'd kiss and I'd feel… I'd feel different lips against mine somehow. And don't misunderstand me, _of course _you were fucking missing! Of course it was like talking to a reflection in the mirror. You lost him in the middle of the fucking night because some heartless bastard broke into his flat and pulled a gun on-"

His voice rose in volume, and the pupils flared with a hissing passion for her, an intense need to protect the woman that he saw as his, pushing through the settled face of a colleague to a colleague, or a colleague to a client, before retreating back to his chest.

"A- and it took you- it took _us _so long to come back. To get back to the way we used to do things. I tried to help you, not just with the practical stuff and the funeral and the grave and shit, but… I tried to help you, babe. I _tried_ but-"

"But work calls, right?"

It is unfair and she knows it immediately, but his trampling words force her not to care.

"… Babe…"

"…"

He takes a deep, tattered breath.

"… Changing how you thought about it, only thinking about the good… slowly easing back into things and forgetting the bad things about him, trying to be happy… all of that, and because of this letter, I mean if it can really be called that, and now you want to go back? Back to doing nothing and ignoring m- ignoring people, and talking like you've just completely given up-"

"I never gave up, Shuya. I was grieving. If you'd lost anyone, you'd know."

"For awhile, I thought I'd lost _you._"

Komachi's heart deflates. Suddenly, she cares again. About being unfair, and about lashing out at him. That is another permanent rule that she finds herself continually breaking without the slightest applied pressure. She can only think about the good, not just about her brother, but also about Shuya. After she lost him, Shuya was the one standing near her, trying to be near to her, _for_ her, and so it was he who leant the ear, offered the shoulder, and allowed himself to be snapped at and hated, however briefly, however ferociously. He was capable of closing his heart from empathy like a jeweller would hide their finest work, but for her, he reserved as close to a "feminine emotion", a tenderness, as his almost egoistic masculinity could allow. He had understood she needed to scream her agonies until they finally misplaced themselves to her, so he let Komachi scream at him instead.

The days where he waited outside the locked bedroom door of their apartment, after she had snapped at him for something so minor as leaving a photograph lopsided, were over. Both of them were happy for that. Better for that. And so, she could empathise with him too. Komachi could see his words, the meaning they frantically tried to convey. _You've grieved already, and this letter will make you do so much more than grieve. _

But what she can't empathise with-

_No, _Komachi told herself, _what _Shuya _can't empathise with, has never empathised with, is Onii-chan. _

They never liked each other. It probably occurred to them, sub-consciously, that there was not room for another where Komachi's attention was concerned. Shuya could not see why she continued to leave so much of it to a person who pushed her away and eternally ruined himself, rather than cherishing it, or trying to, as he himself did. That resentment, lingering still, can be seen in his gaze as it scans over the words of the letter again, interpreting them, settling on the occasional sentence with a force that surprises her.

He doesn't like the letter. Hachiman did not intend for it to be read by Chikashi Shuya, and it offended him, for that and probably for something else too. Why does it offend him so much, she wonders?

_No. _Hachiman intended it for one person only, and for that reason in itself, Komachi knew that she would never be able to let the words go.

"Shuya, I… I couldn't forget this. I couldn't forget this even if I tried."

He breathes in again, but it's less tattered this time, and with more frustration that he tries and fails to misconstrue from her.

"I know. I can see full well that you couldn't forget this. For as long as this… as this letter is with you, you're never gonna be able to forget about it. Forget about him."

"I don't want to _forget_ about him, Shuya," she very nearly spat.

"But you don't want to remember him either, right? You've told me that it hurts."

"Yes, but-"

"But nothing. This letter doesn't make any sense, babe. It doesn't mean a single damn thing. The thing that he's written… listen, I know full well you don't want to hear this, but your brother clearly wasn't all right when he wrote this. He was out of his head. I mean, the stuff about your cat, jesus fucking christ…"

Komachi bites her tongue. There is no way of explaining it to him. There is no way of explaining that the writing in the letter is the most rational she has seen him write, text, speak, _be, _for years before he disappeared. Furthermore, Hachiman wrote it very much aware of this. Very much aware that Chikashi Shuya, or Yukinoshita Haruno, or the "they" addressed so hatefully in his letter, could only read it, never comprehend it.

She reaches out and snatches the paper away from her boyfriend, cradling it close to her. The tugging reminder of the truth that was so obvious, the truth that Shuya was never going to tell her what she wanted to hear, carves relentlessly at her flesh. It was foolish of her to show it to him, but she wouldn't have been able to condone lying, and doing what she would never wish another to do to her.

Now, she has to condone lying regardless.

"Shuya… I love you, and… I'll try as hard as I can to put this behind me. I'll put the letter away somewhere and I'll try to put it behind me."

_Surely he can tell I'm lying. _Either way, he continues.

"Are you sure babe? I could… I could get rid of it now for you-"

"No. Don't get rid of it, never do that. Just… just let me put it somewhere. I'll leave it at the bottom of a drawer. I promise."

Shuya doesn't seem to think that speaking will be sufficient, and so he settles for shovelling her into his arms. He kisses her hair, runs his fingers across the ahoge as is habitual for him, allows her to nestle against the warm of his chest, encased in the stylish pink shirt of his business suit. She thinks he looks worse in pink than in the white shirt he sometimes wears in place of it. His body is tense but sensuously familiar, familiar enough for the lies between them to passingly implode, just enough for her to remember her feelings for him like a hurricane arriving all at once, and surrender to them.

"Okay babe. I really think you should get rid of it, but I'll let you do things your own way."

"Thank you, Shuya."

"…"

Their desperate clutching at each other persists, but it is Shuya who breaks it.

"Is there anything you need, babe? I could make you another mug of tea."

He trails off at her sardonic smile. The remnant shards of her own attempt at making tea, only minutes earlier, had to be picked up before they managed to cut themselves on them.

"To be brutally honest, I think I need something stronger than that."

"… Do you want one of my beers?"

"You know I hate that stuff."

"I don't think we have any wine in-"

"Leave it then." Komachi sighs. "Actually, I… if I need anything, I think its some time alone."

"… Alright. I'll, uh- I'll give you some privacy." He stands up awkwardly. "… I mean get a beer for myself, actually."

He walks around the sofa, back towards the kitchen area.

"_I am a spiteful person, Komachi. I'm sorry you were forced to this."_

_Yes, you are a spiteful person, Onii-chan. And I'm sorry too. _

Hikigaya Komachi waits until her boyfriend is looking away, and then folds the letter and pushes it back into the opened envelope. One thing she knew: it would definitely not be staying at the bottom of a drawer.

* * *

No more than a month before Hachiman died, his sister had seen his face in person for the final time. _Not Hikigaya Komachi, _she thinks to herself, _just his sister, _for intimacy, the intermittent comfort between siblings, had become a foreign thing, an absent thing, languishing on a lost shore beyond the horizon that "just his sister" didn't have much hope of reaching. She could send however many texts and calls she thought would grant her some peace of mind, however many vapid messages in a bottle, but for Hachiman there was always a something or other to attend to. A thought to chase that Komachi had little to no role in.

It distresses her to think that this was the final encounter she had with him. It is a different breed of distress to the one that swells within her lungs at a regular memory of him. It is not the grieving kind, the longing that she could wake up the next day safe in the knowledge that Hachiman was waking up too, not in tandem, but at least blinking, feeling sun on his stubble-ridden cheeks. It is a distress at the abysmal, pathetic impotency of that meeting; of how long it took her to convince him to meet her anyway, far longer than it should have done between siblings, and how quickly he "had to leave" upon arriving. She invited him to a park, a park bench where she liked to sit with Shuya, just so they could talk, see each other, remember that each other were alive.

She is sat on that park bench now. Unbeknownst to Shuya, this is a regular, frequented place. It is a beautiful park- a glimpse of green and cherry blossom-adorned relief amidst the dark grey trees of Chiba's skyscrapers. The cherry blossoms are not present at this time of year, and the sky is more coldly staring than warmly gazing, but its beauty is a fact that keeps her coming back. That, and the fact, the memory, of Hachiman walking away from her, his back to her, his footsteps carrying him to a place that, for the foreseeable future, no text message of hers could reach.

When he finally arrived on that last day, it was a brief exchange. He sat down on the bench beside her, wearing a shabby coat that she chronically urged him to replace, the black one with the tear on its under hem. She greeted him with a happy smile, a genuine one, for seeing Hachiman could never truly be a sad experience. A disappointing one, an infuriating one, but not a sad one. He greeted her with his monosyllabic grunt of detachment, _"Yo",_ and they spiralled through the motions of asking how each other were, how Shuya was, had her brother met someone new, or old perhaps.

His distraction was not a new entity. Komachi strained to find a time or a place when Hikigaya Hachiman had not been distracted by some new pessimistic epiphany or realisation about his peers. Nonetheless, on the conjured timeline in her aching head, Komachi could pinpoint when those distractions had become absences, and those absences had become ignoring and forgetting her. The aftermath of the party at Miura Yumiko's, all the way back in Sobu High, had submerged her brother in a possessive, consuming wave of resentment. While the rest of his school grieved a death that they were seemingly happy to accept as inevitable, Komachi watched as her brother did everything in his power to deny that turgid denial a place in his life, and what's more, a place in the lives of the people around him. The Service Club. Those in his class. His sister.

He changed, or alternatively did not change at all, simply resembling more the sides of his personality that were self-destructive, and self-hating. Komachi could see it happening, and detested knowing that her brother was letting it happen.

All her attempts to reach out to him prompted a snap, or a hollow reassurance that she was fine. _Rather like the way you treated Shuya_, a tiny, equally bitter part of her whispered. She never once found out what he _truly _thought happened that night, at the party. Komachi could add that to the list of things about her brother that he refused to tell her. Her guesses as to what he thought happened were probably more terrifying than the reality.

_My brother did not like to burden other people with his problems. _That is a good thought, Komachi can tell. A good way to perceive it. There, the rule has been upheld.

She blinks restlessly and rests her head against the wooden top of the bench. _Why are you on this bench again? Why? The Saize restaurant, and now here._

She hadn't brought the letter with her, despite it being the main motivation that spurred her to return to this place that, slowly and steadily, she had been plotting to remove from her life. Yet determinedly, phrases and cryptic teasing had danced a nightmarish foxtrot through her brain, even as the previous day slunk off and her and Shuya climbed into bed. He left for work before she woke up in the morning, but Komachi did not have a shift at the clothes shop, which was occupying her days as the compassionate leave rumbled on. The apartment had seemed garish and unwelcoming of her company, and so, here she is.

The utterly pointless meeting flashes through her, and she is powerless to stop it once more. The afterimage of her brother, sat beside her on the park bench, bleeds across her eyelids. She closes them with the expectation it will leave, but the distorted, chaotic shape of him only roars more fully into existence. With this comes a section of the memory that she pushed down, and half disposed of, but the letter has brought out those little hints, remade and readjusted them to seem bigger than before.

Muttering that he had to throw away an old paper receipt, Hachiman had got up and walked towards a trashcan opposite them. He left behind his phone on the bench, unlocked, on the page of his contacts. Komachi did not prevent herself from glancing at them, seeing the lack of numbers listed, seeing herself, and then seeing a contact that hadn't been blessed with a name.

The contact, whoever they were, had been registered as _"Bitch" _in his phone. Hachiman did not always choose to be eloquent. Even stranger was that throughout this meeting her self-confessed loner of a brother, a status that endured into his adulthood, had kept on taking out his phone and checking it.

She had glanced up, seen her brother walking back over, and politely averted her eyes from the phone. Hachiman picked it up none the wiser. Twenty minutes later, he told her that he wasn't able to stay long, her lame acceptance of this only encouraging him, and walked away from her.

Walked away from her forever. A pathetic goodbye for a relationship that gradually, over time, had wrinkled and scarred itself, until it fully deserved the pathetic goodbye that it received.

Hikigaya Komachi covers her face with her hands, disturbed that it is not this fact alone that is disturbing her. While doing so, she remembers him taking out his phone again and answering a call. He never answered her calls, but this strange contact, and the ugly word her brother associated it with, could well have merited a different response from her.

"_I know that I am going to die, and I know exactly why, and how, and where. It has been planned, Komachi. I cannot say how long their plan has been in motion, but it is a good one."_

_What do you want me to do, Hachiman? Why do you only want me to help you now? I was never allowed to while you were still her-_

Her own iPhone buzzes abruptly, causing her to jump on the bench. Left cold at the frankness of the interruption, Komachi pulls it out, anticipating Shuya's name on the screen. Instead, it is from an unknown number. She snorts and hangs up.

_I can't… I can see that you wrote this for me. That the letter is important, and you want me to help you. I want more than anything to-_

The caller rings for a second time, and pulling it out with more anger than is necessary, Komachi answers it.

"_If you're selling me something, then fuck off-"_

"_Little Komachi-chan! How are you doing?"_

She goes stock-still. The voice of Yukinoshita Haruno, just as it did in the Saize restaurant, has managed to catch her completely off-guard. She glances at the expanse of grass and trees behind the bench, half-expecting the seemingly omniscient woman to be stood behind her.

Reflexively, her cute voice slips into place.

"… _Gosh, Yukinoshita-san! This is such a pleasant surprise!"_

"_Why thank you! I really feel like we need to meet up more often. Yesterday at Saize was tantalising, don't you worry, but you can never get enough of meeting old school friends."_

"_Of course, I totally agree, but… could I just ask how you managed to get my number? I don't remember giving it to you-"_

"_And yet I distinctly remember telling you that I am the editor of a magazine. It's my job to be intrusive."_

Stated like this, Komachi couldn't help but think Yukinoshita Haruno has found herself in the perfect line of work.

"_Any particular reason why you're calling? Oh, and I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly yesterday. You probably had to foot the bill, didn't you?"_

"_Woe is me, indeed. But not to worry Komachi-chan, I have yen to pay for a lot worse than a Saize meal."_

"_I'd expect nothing less from a Yukinoshita."_

"_Hmm? Well, I suppose there _would_ be set expectations for a person of my family. Expectations for your own would be far removed, right?"_

"_I've never known expectation in my life, Yukinoshita-san."_

"_But you slipped into that adorable voice of yours rather neatly, didn't you? Of course, you would only use that for strangers, not for anyone close to you, yes? People that love you would want to see you as you are, not as an expectation."_

"_No one could possibly want to see _you _as you are, Yukinoshita-san. They'd run away terrified."_

"_You see? That cutesy manner is truly remarkable! You can say as insulting a thing as you want in that voice, and it comes across like a perfectly innocent little joke. I wish I had your skills!"_

The verbal sparring that Yukinoshita Haruno insists on almost comes as a relief. As an obstacle that she can focus on, drawing her away from the memories surrounding her, the doubts steepening and tightening her throat on the park bench. With Haruno it doesn't have to be personal. They can insult each other equally, and lie to each other reasonably, and Komachi does not have to regret it. Not like lying to Shuya.

As they spoke, she reminds herself to add the number into her contacts. The letter, for better or for worse, will most likely evoke multiple phone calls between them.

"_Oh, don't misunderstand me! I truly didn't mean it as an insu-"_

"_Have you read the letter?"_

Suddenly, Yukinoshita Haruno means business. Suddenly, the phone call does not come as a relief, and Komachi wants nothing more than to hang up and forget her mental promise to keep the contact.

"… _Why do you want to know?"_

"_Come on, little Komachi-chan. Don't you remember what your charming brother wrote about me-" _

"_No."_

"_No what?"_

"_You can say whatever you want, Yukinoshita-san. It's not like I could stop you anyway. But… but I don't want to hear his name so much as pass your lips."_

She laughs at her. _"You may not want to hear, but like you said, you have no means of stopping me. But come now, we don't need to argue. Not too much, anyway."_

"…"

"_Well? Have you read the lette-"_

"_I had to read it. You know that."_

"_And what did you think?"_

"… _I think that you hate not being able to understand it."_

"_You would be right to think that, yes."_

"… _He said that… he said that he entrusted you with the letter."_

"_Entrusted it to me is a nice way of phrasing it. Actually, I only received it. It came to me in the post a week after they found his body."_

She tries to steady the tremor in her hand.

"… _Why would he-"_

"_Why would he send it to me? Where's your sense of fun, Komachi-chan? It would be all too easy if I told you everything immediate-"_

"_I already told you. Back in the Saize restaurant. My brother… this, Yukinoshita-san, is not one of your games."_

"_Your right. This is your brother's game. I'm just playing my part."_

"_I said don't fucking talk about hi-"_

"_He was definitely right about my curiosity, though. In the letter. I traced its delivery, and it turns out that he sent it the day before he was murdered. He really _did _know that he was going to die."_

The part of the letter she is referring to echoes in her bones like the scream of a ghost.

"… _It was… the police told me… the apartment was broken into by a robber. That's all it was. I saw the… The robber broke in and my brother c- caught him, and he was shot while the man got away. The p- police… the police told me it was an accident-"_

"_And your brother's telling you that he was murdered. I suppose the _real_ question is who are you going to believe?" _

"…"

"_Little Komachi-chan? Are you still there?"_

"… _Fuck you."_

She hangs up.

Hikigaya Komachi is not quite sure who the insult is aimed at. Yukinoshita Haruno, or the idiot who has thrown her life back into a dark, bristling abyss just when it seemed for all the world that she was re-emerging from it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Shattered Memories **

**Chapter Four:**

Komachi rings the doorbell of the house, knowing with a petulant guilt that she already regrets it- that her heart and her head are screaming at the inexplicable grip on her arm that dragged her to this house, in this place, above any other. The footsteps that she took to bring her here seemed too fluid to be a part of the same person that, as she walked, could hardly comprehend her surroundings. All of them, the park that she fled from in the wake of Haruno's phone call, the train that she clambered on to bring her here, were engulfed in the fortified, poisonous loss that she could still hear being whispered into her ear by the Yukinoshita sister. Haruno hurt her so easily, without even lifting a finger. The wounds that have failed to become scars are gaping open, all across her skin like chasms in the earth, and it took her no effort at all to break the delusion that they had healed. Point them out and Komachi can only remind herself of how much the wounds, the memories, the grief, continue to impale her.

No one answers the sound of the bell, or maybe they don't hear her, or maybe they don't care, so she rings it agan patiently, waits, taps her foot. She looks over her shoulder at the street. The dictatorial layout of the houses, the systematic lines of the lower-end cars, choke out a familiar refrain, a discordant recognition within her. This street, and another just like it close by, holds a past imprint of herself. This morsel of a suburb in Chiba can never be her home again. Her mind will shatter in two if she is forced to do more than visit this place ever again. She and Hachiman lived here. She and Hachiman lost their father here. He, in his attendance at Sobu High, lost a part of himself here. She lost a part of him too, and now, as she can no longer pretend that the misplacing of a child's toy or a ring of car keys is the same kind of loss she is experiencing, Komachi has come back to her childhood's home. As if she might catch a sight of her brother cycling to Sobu High, or net some of his rare laughter mid-flight and take it back to Shuya's apartment, watch it flutter like a firefly whose universe has been limited to a jar, keep it on her bedside and never set it free.

The house they lived in couldn't remain so after their father's funeral. An awful ingratitude in Komachi allowed her to forget that her parents had loved each other just as deeply as they loved their children. The death of their father in the crash had left a puncture in their mother's chest, and the air that seeped out had slowly asphyxiated her. That grief swelled and combusted in the air, filling every room of their house, the street, anything that reminded their mother and themselves of the person that they'd lost. But they couldn't leave, not with their mother's local job being the only source of their income, and Komachi and Hachiman both being educated at Sobu High. So, they persisted in this place until both of them had graduated and moved onto university. At the arrival of this self-sufficiency, their mother put the house on the market and moved out of residential Chiba, closer to the country, putting distance between herself and any semblance of the life that, with her husband, had long since started to rot and waste away.

Komachi still visited her mother often; Hachiman, on the other hand, had ceased almost all contact with her. He would lie and claim otherwise, but Komachi saw painstakingly the lines of resentment on his face when the subject of their mother's absence came up: he had always unfairly doubted his parents commitment to them, and her leaving was a cutting enabler of his suspicions. Komachi knew better, but found no way to reassure him, prove to him that the truth he was perceiving was wrong. _As usual, _she thought bitterly.

And, as the days pressed forward, she saw his isolation deepening, and saw a day when, like their mother, Hachiman would leave her behind too. The responsibility for that, in the warped mess of Komachi's heart, would fall on her. She would be guilty for letting him think that he could destroy their connection, forget it and suppress it like all his other failings.

Only an hour after receiving the phone call from the police that relayed the news, unthinking of the years, the irresolute depth of affection it would erase, Komachi had insisted that she be the one to tell their last surviving parent. The police, over the phone, had offered to make the call for her, but her subconscious anticipated the sense of responsbility, burrowing into her innards, for the death that she had no way of averting. It seemed morbidly appropriate that she should be the one to do it; for the months before he left her, Komachi had been the final weedling link, trying in vain to keep the fractious parts of their family united, even as that link rusted unapologetically. She called her mother, she cried, they cried together, and then they hung up the phone, leaving themselves to a more personal stream of tears.

_"If I were to sacrifice the truth entirely, then it would be for you." _

_This is my fault... somehow, I know this is my fault..._

A surge of panic. She rings the bell a third time, and then resorts to knocking, frantic, frantic.

"Taishi-kun? Kawasa-"

The door swings open, revealing the person who, in the absence of another, her heart had identified as a place she could hide hersef from Yukinoshita Haruno's intrusions, or Shuya's immediate dismissal of the letter and her doubts, or the letter itself, all at once. Kawasaki Taishi has a disconcerting face- not down to ugliness or any such physical ailment, but by its apparent inability to age. Save for the lengthened hair, and the clearing of the once spotty complexion, the youthful boyishness of his face has stood firm, an undisturbed treasure of their adolescence, and all the easy evenings and schooldays that had once embodied. That, the pale blue hair, the stunned concern on his face, for _her, _that she desperately needs right now, all strike her simultaneously, weakening her knees.

"Komachi-chan! What-"

She gives in and steps over the threshold to Taishi's house, and into his arms. He gasps, steps back, withdrawing from the contact, but the fear paralysing her limbs alerts him to the miserable need of his friend, perhaps the closest he has, and he intuitively accepts her. Komachi leans against him, enshrining herself in the fleeting ministration.

He leads her inside.

* * *

Komachi can't expel the thought. This is not the first time she's been inside Taishi's house, though it is markedly the first time in months, and the alterations, the inescapable changes of the new velvet cushions or the presence of new photographs of Taishi and Kawasaki on the side table, enforces her lack of belonging. The fact that this is only another place where she could never belong. The truth rebounds off the beige wallpaper like the echoes of long-ago emitted screams.

Her eyes flitter to the photographs in question- one of them, a plaintive ode to a brother and sister's relationship in a narrow black frame, their smiling faces pressed together in order to squeeze into the lens of what was probably just an iPhone camera. The last time she was here, Taishi had been in a relationship, and next to one of those photographs was a newer picture of her and that girl, the girl older than him who had looked at her friend with the greedy want of someone intent on recapturing their youth. That photograph, that dismal failure at a lasting romance, is gone, seemingly forgotten and thankfully so, but the pictures of Taishi and his sister stand together like a veracious promise that will never be thrown away.

That kind of relationship, between siblings, can never be replaced.

Taishi had taken her to the couch, let her sit down and, without having to say a word, returned with, on a tray, a pot of green tea with two small mugs. It's the way she likes it. He's remembered. Why has he remembered it so perfectly? Or at least it was the way she likes it, as in his patient silence, waiting for her to confide in him in her own time, Komachi hasn't touched it, and permitted things to turn lukewarm. The sensation of tepid immobility rises in the tea's fading steam and informs her indifferently that she is sitting still, has been sitting still for months, while the rest of the world raced on around her. Very few people are willing to sit with her, share in that hopelessness- Shuya, her mother should they visit each other, and Taishi.

He's wearing simple jeans and a T-shirt, one emblazoned with a light novel series that she's seen before. That, or it's just designed to look like one she's seen before. Attached to the T-shirt is a sadistic reminder that her brother probably read it once, which Komachi takes as another cue to submerge herself in the free, uninhibited sympathy on Taishi's face. She looks for a conversation starter. She's grasping for an apology before they've even spoken, or something towards that, for imposing on him. For neglecting their friendship except for when she needs it. Isn't that how it's been since Sobu High? Taishi is her bestfriend, her number one, but only when Shuya or Hachiman aren't there.

"... Where's your sister? Is she home?" she begins falteringly.

Taishi is surprised that his sister is the first thing Komachi focuses on. She can see that, but he cossets her anyway. "Yeah. She's just upstairs."

"Does she... does she know I'm here? I should say hello-"

"No no no," he cuts over her reassuringly, "don't feel the need. She's probably just taking a break. I'm sure she'll come down and say hi in a bit."

"How are things going with her? Uh, w- with both of you."

He smiles. "Onee-san's doing well. She's still holding down the receptionist job that she had when we last spoke. You remember that?" Komachi nodded and he continued. "I'm really proud of her. Keeping to time schedules and working regular hours... it really helps Onee-san, I think. Keeps her grounded. It reminds me of how she used to hold down two or three jobs at a time back in high school, y'know..."

His expression grows wistful, which only makes another contribution to the aimless regret sat like traffic congestion on her chest. _I'm not the only one whose lost a sibling. _Schadenfreude is a disfigured, unattractive kind of solace, and she loathes that Taishi's own difficulties with his sister feeds the voice of begrudging jealousy in her- _you might still have your sister, but not _all _of her is there- _or that it would be a solace to her at all. Hayama's death distorted everything its thorn-like fingers came into contact with, and every person at that party, not just Hachiman. Komachi was concerned enough with her brother and spared no time for Kawasaki Saki, whose absence from school begun with a day, and then became a week, and then weeks upon weeks. When she did return, her voice had all but disappeared, speaking to no one, and the mess of her uniform was only another manifestation of the deformed soulessness in her eyes.

Taishi would later tell her what affliction meant she was in no state to study for her final exams, that they passed her by and with them all sight of a scholarship and the future Saki had once mapped out for herself- self-loathing. Trips to the psychiatrist, pushing the whole of their family to within an inch of disrepair, might have reduced it to the post traumatic stress of a violent incident, or that and a hundred different aggravating factors, but Taishi told Komachi that he thought, at the heart of it, his sister couldn't handle the fact that Hayama's death had shattered the mirage of the person that she thought she was. Kawasaki Saki, he thought, had seen something, or done something, or perhaps _not _seen or done something, and it had brought that widely feared place of no return, the inescapable hole within a person, far too close to her orbit.

Komachi can't help but think Hachiman fell within that hole too. For Saki, it had become too much to bury away, but perhaps Hachiman, who never understood the limits of his feelings, had just kept falling and falling. Saki had Taishi. She had her parents to try and hoist her back to normality. And now, after years of trying, Saki's life appears to be starting all over again.

Hachiman had Komachi, and his did not.

"Komachi?"

She jolts back, and sees that Taishi has been talking. She dips her head.

"Sorry, um... what were you saying?"

"I was just asking if you remembered when I asked the Service Club for help with my sister? And how they found out she was working a night job in a bar." He laughs fondly.

"That was... certainly a long time ago, Taishi-kun."

"The Service Club... god. I can't believe something as ridiculous as that club even existed! You're not still in contact with... uh... sorry that's, um... that's really insensitive of me-"

"It's fine. But no. For obvious reasons." She replies tightly.

"... Sorry Komachi-chan. It's just because Onee-san and I, we... nevermind. I thought it was funny at the time, but, uh... sorry again."

Komachi decides not to say anything this time. Taishi is quick to apologise, especially to people he cares about. The more times, the more the person means to him. And Taishi's company alone forgives his capacity to say the wrong thing, no matter how irrepressibly good his intentions are.

_Onee-san and I, we... nevermind._

And she won't say anything about that comment, either. That's something Yukinoshita Haruno would do. Or her brother. Question things. They wouldn't know what to do if something was true. They could only comprehend something if it was false.

Komachi doesn't want to be the person who questions. She truly doesn't.

"... Komachi-chan, you... I don't want to rush you, but it's clear you're not here to talk about my sister."

She laughs uncomfortably. "Really? That's a remarkable piece of insight."

_Isn't that something Hachiman would say? Aren't I only supposed to be thinking of the good? _

"Komachi-chan..."

She reaches forward and picks up the mug of green tea, tasting it. It is as cold as a tombstone.

"I..." _Now that I'm here, I don't know if I want to tell you. _

"... Sorry. I get just wanting to be _near _someone. We don't need to talk-"

"I just... Taishi-kun. I really thought... I really, genuinely thought that I'd turned a corner. I thought things would be different from now on. I guess I was... naive to think that my life would begin to resemble being alive again. I never thought that I'd forget about him... I never thought that. But I thought things would get easier, and if anything it just gets fucking..."

Komachi puts the mug back down and shivers. For some reason, she drank all of it anyway.

"I understand. It sounds patronising and false, but in this example I- I actually do understand, Komachi-chan. With Onee-san, she... well, the person in that body, she just wasn't the same person I'd grown up with. A person with depression, they... well, from my experience I'd say they're hardly a person at all. Not in a cruel way. They're just not the same anymore. And deep down, they know it too, and knowing that the person you used to be is so... so _not there_... that only makes it worse."

Komachi laughs, not knowing what else to do. "Thanks for being there for me, Taishi-kun. I'm never going to be the same person again. Very reassuring."

"... I wouldn't ask for Onee-san to be like she was. Sometimes, when she's at her lowest, I _think _that I wish that party had never happened, but Saki... the _new _Saki, faults and all, is Kawasaki Saki too. They're no less deserving of that name than the old Kawasaki Saki. And you... you're _still _Hikigaya Komachi. I know it, and you know it."

"... Shuya definitely wouldn't say that. He'd just tell me of the stupid rules we made... Always think of the good, always keep moving on." _Forget about the letter, _she whispers privately.

"Shuya's advice is good too."

The quiet, neither alarming nor familial, sits back down on the couches next to them like an old, dusty memoire you should have thrown out long ago. Through the curtains, the humourless grey of the sky asserts itself, but Komachi feels the urge to laugh again, and this time properly. She's never heard Taishi sound so insincere. Or, on the other hand, she has: whenever Chikashi Shuya is involved. Komachi can read people, has always been able to read people- a Hikigaya family trait- and Taishi is a good friend precisely because his thoughts and feelings are never foreign to her. His thoughts and feelings to Shuya. His thoughts and feelings, very much of the opposite kind, to her. He doesn't hide them, not really, because he too is aware that she can see through him, that she has reluctantly acknowledged them since they first met.

The only thing about them that Komachi can't read, that remains foreign to her, is why he hasn't outgrown them. Why, if anything, the feelings have matured.

_Questions. Questioning. _She doesn't want to be that.

"... I'm sorry, Taishi-kun. It always has to be about me, doesn't it... How are your parents?"

"They're good... I know... Well, they still struggle with it. That things haven't turned out how they expected. Your mother is like that as well, isn't she, and... Onee-san is Onee-san, she relies on me, I haven't got the time to hold down a proper job like Shuya, both of us are still living at home... We aren't exactly high boasts, are we?"

There again. _Like Shuya. _The note of resentment. Komachi hears that the note is stronger than usual, that the tone of his voice changed completely at the slightest mention of his name, that the reaction is far more noticeable than it used to be.

"Shuya's doing great, in case you wanted to know."

"He always is."

Komachi pushes her fingers together. "Taishi-kun... I shouldn't be here, I really shouldn't, but please don't make this about him. I came not to think about him anway-"

"Why? What's he said this time? Or what _hasn't _he said-"

"_Or, _Taishi-kun, _or, _about anything else either. I just wanted to be with my friend."

The final word, that resounding statement that she hadn't even realised the significance of before it left her lips, leaves Taishi biting his own.

"You still think this about..."

"What? What do I think this is about, Taishi-kun-"

"You still think I don't like him because... what, I have high-school crush on you? I'm sorry, but that's what you think, isn't it?"

She leans back, wishing the conversation would abandon her and never return. "I'm n- not saying th-"

"It _isn't _that. Whatever you think I fe... Whatever you think about me, you need to know that, like you said, I'm your _friend. _I want what's best for you."

"What does that mean?"

"... Well... I'm sorry, but..." The indignance, the bravado, falters. "I'm... I'm sorry, but I can't help see a pattern..."

"What pattern?"

"... How many times have you needed to come for my help? Or anyone's help, because... because of something he's done wron-"

"I did _not _come because of Shuya, Taishi-kun. You know the person I'm here because of-"

"Isn't a friend supposed to say what they think needs to be said? Even if it falls on deaf ears-"

"Then say it properly. Say what's wrong with him. Maybe I'm blindly in love him, maybe I accept that and can't see him properly through my rose-tinted fucking glasses. Please Taishi-kun, enlighten the stupid, emotional woman with your friendship."

"... You hated nothing more than when your brother pushed you away. I've... Onee-san does this too. She lashes out when I'm trying to help her."

"..."

"... I'm... I'm sorry, but could you please try to listen? I know that you're... that you're together-"

"-I'm in love with him, Tais-"

"-_I know, _just... just let me say it. This isn't to do with me. This is about me being your... your friend."

"..." Komachi, childishly, out of cowardice, whatever word she can find to describe it, doesn't look at him. The letter, Shuya, Haruno, and Taishi, all saying things, things she doesn't want to hear. Truths and falsehoods she doesn't want to be held in the balance. She wants them to be separate, and black and white.

"Shuya, he... It's perfectly possible to be in... to be together with someone, and want to be together with someone, even if... they keep making the same mistakes. And... hurting you."

"..."

"But at some point, you... you have to draw the line, Komachi. You don't... you don't seem to me the most important person in Chikashi Shuya's life. There's one person who matters to him, and that's... I'm sorry-"

"Stop saying fucking sorry."

"..."

"Would I be the most important person in your life, Taishi-kun? Is that what you're saying-"

"-no, I-"

"You don't know. You, my brother, none of you tried. You don't know him, and you don't love him, and he doesn't love you. He might not say the right thing, he might not always be there for me, but most of the time _he is, _and you don't know him. Name one time he's done me wrong, _truly _done me wrong, and-"

She stops abruptly. _He... he just opened his mouth. He was about to say something._ Taishi has pulled himself back, and retreated into his seat, clamped his mouth shut, but Komachi has always been able to read him.

"... You were going to say something."

"..."

"... What were you going to say?"

"... I'm sorry, Komachi-chan. This wasn't fair of me-"

"No. No it wasn't. But now you've told me what you really think, and you were going to say more, so say it. Make it even less fai-"

The final droplets of strength in her voice evaporates, and it becomes a choke. She covers her eyes with her palms. "I'm... I'm not going to cry in front of you, Taishi-kun."

She stands up and hauls herself over to the door, opens it, and steps back into the hallway of their house. _It looks so much like ours. It looks so much like our fucking house. _Taishi shouts a name to her, a name that should definitively be hers, _Hikigaya Komachi, _but it has never once sounded like that. Like a garbled nothing of incoherence in a language unlike her own, each syllable as alien as the next. She ignores Taishi's call again and moves further away, towards the staircase but then past it and into the extension they got while she was at university, one of the only differences between this house and their own.

The temperature was colder in this room whenever Komachi visited- they would keep the door closed, but it had a way of resisting the central heating so completely that you immediately wanted to leave. She wants to leave the house entirely, but the sight of the street, the cars, and the prospect of returning to Shuya's crushing, punitive apartment is even more catastrophically unlikeable. The seat nearest her is pulled forward and she collapses into it, looking lifelessly at the table, beautified by an empty jug of water, a partly torn newspaper, a glass half empty.

"Komachi, I... I'm..."

He's standing outside the room. Komachi doesn't move from the seat.

"I shouldn't be saying things like that. I'm sorry."

"... Just... just let me be alone. For a bit. I'll leave you alone after that, I promise."

"No, you don't... you don't need to leave. Not if you don't want."

She chooses not to reply, if only to makes things a little easier. After a moment, he sighs loudly and walks back through the hallway, presumably back into the front room.

Komachi waits until she can't hear his footsteps any longer, and then scrounges in her jacket pocket, feels the rough edges of paper and pulls the letter out, as if she were an addict and this was her nicotine. She lays it out on the table, brushes her fingers across it, trembling with the knowledge of her brother's blackened words scratched across the whiteness.

She reads it again.

_"And so, I write now in the hope that one day, you will be able to see that you meant far more to me than I could ever hope to express."_

_Me too, Hachiman._

_I miss you. I miss you so much. Yours sincerely, Hikigaya Komachi. My letter isn't as long or cryptic as yours, but it means more, right? _

Once the words have run their course in her head, she leans forward and rests her cheek against the paper. Her head lies sideways on the table, her brother's words glide over her pale face, her eyes slash subtle woundings into the wall. Then, breathing the letter and its meaning in, she lifts her head again and puts it back into her pocket. _That's the closest you'll ever be to him again. _

_I'm thinking of Hachiman, not Shuya. Taishi nearly told me... something. He nearly told me something about Shuya, and I can hardly bring myself to care. I should go back and ask him, ask him what he was going to sa-_

The proposition in her head breaks away as her eyes catch sight of the half-torn newspaper. It's open on a specific page in the middle- it's a local paper, The Chiba Nippo. The article on the left side of the double spread projects an image of a courthouse, the building so many walk past in the centre of Chiba, with two people stepping out of the huge glass doors, their barely focused faces brimming with the austere self-control one would expect after a trial. The story can't be that important, the trial not that infamous, because Komachi definitely hasn't heard of it and it wasn't deemed worthy enough for the front page, but evidently Taishi or Kawasaki had seen the necessity of reading it.

And one of the faces in the image, through all the judicial frankness, cannot hide its superficial beauty, nor the fact that Hikigaya Komachi recognises it. She pulls the page closer, squints and doublechecks. She isn't mistaken.

_It... really is her. Yukinoshita Yukino. _

She moves her attention from the photograph to the article. The headline read:

_"Deadlocked Case Rumbles On". A legal dispute over the rights of the proposed new apartment complex between two, prominent local building firms is still ongoing. The case was brought to court over five months ago, and the uncertainty over the verdict seems to be brought about by the fervour of combative defence lawyer Yukinoshita Yukino, whose sustained efforts, amidst several new pieces of evidence, have kept the trial- _

Komachi forces herself to stop reading, knowing full well it will only encourage the myriad of questions already beginning to form at the edges of her mind. The meanings she can read it into it, to Yukinoshita Yukino's presence in Chiba, that she never knew, that she arrived here two months before Hachiman's death, that her sister is the one who brought the letter in the firs-

_"You're not still in contact with, uh... It's just that Onee-san and I, we... nevermind." Taishi said that. Those were two more things that just fucking slipped out. Is thi-_

Violently, she grabs the newspaper, looks again at the spitting picture of Yukinoshita Yukino, the new recurring figure of her brother's youth that just happens to be stampeding back into her head, her every waking moment. She tears it down the middle and drops it back onto the table, and her fingers latch onto the edges of it like talons. _I don't want this. I don't want my brother's riddles or Haruno's games or Taishi's feelings or Shuya's ignorance. I just want... _

"Komachi? Are you doing alright in ther-"

Taishi's question is answered for him as she lifts herself up, the sadness avalanching into defiance, and pulls open the closed the door. He steps back in surprise, seeing the fissure of emotions in her eyes.

"... I'm sorry-"

"I said stop saying sorry. Just tell me what... just tell me what you were going to say."

He winces. "... About Shuy-"

"Yes about Shuya, what else would it be about?!"

"... I... I wasn't thinking straight. I thought it was important, but... believe me, you don't need to hear that right now."

Komachi grabs her hair in frustration. "And when _will_ I need to hear about it, Taishi-kun? When will that be?"

"It doesn't matter. Sometimes, it's more important to be happy than to be right."

"..." The words catch her cold. Kawasaki Taishi, in all his life, has never once sounded like her brother, but that was the truest antithesis. There couldn't be anything said that her brother would disagree with more. But he compromised that philosophy in his letter, for the one person he claimed he cared about.

_"You are a better person than me, Hikigaya Komachi. You deserve happiness. If there is any justice in the world, you will get both."_

"Sometimes, it's more important to be happy than to be right..." she murmurs, repeating what she heard only seconds before.

"Komachi? What did you say?"

She meets her friend's eyes. "... You're probably right. I don't want to hear what... what you think about Shuya, or what anyone thinks is right, or the truth. And I wouldn't know to believe you or not, even if you _would _tell me. Shuya would just tell me something different. You know what that means, Taishi-kun?" _You know what that means, Onii-chan?_

"..." He only looks at her, stunned.

"... It means I have to find out for myself."

Without letting herself hesitate, for Komachi knows intuitively that thinking twice will only break the distant chord of purpose she has latched onto, she shifts past Taishi and over to the front door. Upon reaching it, her fingers curl and twist at the handle, revealing the street and the authoritarian cars still stood outside, barricading her from the five-letter word her brother dedicated so much of his life to for a reason that is probably impossible to unravel.

"Komachi, what are you-"

"Thank you for the tea, Taishi-kun. And for being a friend. I... I know it doesn't seem like it, but you've helped me. You really have."

"W- wait, I don't understan-"

The cold air wraps around her again at the click of the door. The end of his sentence is muffled, but Komachi doesn't bother waiting, throwing herself through the small gate of their house and back onto the pavement.

She tilts her head back and breathes in the musty scent of exhaust fumes, and alongside that, a past dream, or nightmare, of herself and her brother.

_Onii-chan... We are similar in so many ways, but I could never do what you did. There are things I care about except what you were searching for. Genuine, truth, right- whatever load of crap you labelled it as in your head. And I'm not going to justify how... how selfish it is that you want me to do the same._

_There are other things I care about. I... I care about being happy too. Sometimes, being happy is more important than being right. Sometimes, being right is more important than being happy. But you're wrong if you think that they can't be the same thing. I _know _that they can. I believe it. _

_I have questions. Some of them are mine, some of the ones you've left for me, but... I will try, Onii-chan. I'll try to answer them. I promise. I'll try to answer them all the same. But there's one... there's one question..._

_I need to know that this isn't my fault. _

_If I don't get the answer I want, then I'll have to live with that._


End file.
